Race Report: 5kms on Canada Day

Droppin' off the bike and ready to run!

Joy here…After a great year in Malaysia, where I turned the corner fitness-wise, reaching all new PBs and improving my all-around health, I decided that I needed to sign up for a race upon returning to Canada.

What better than a Canada Day race on July 1st in Ottawa?

So The Man and I hopped on our bikes in the early hours of our second week back in Canada and headed down to the race start line, where I leaned my bike up against the fence and started my warm up run with the other competitors.

In Malaysia I had gotten pretty used to being one of the fitter folks out there.  I had started to enjoy riding my bike faster than some of the other guys out there riding up the hill on any given Sunday morning, and I had started getting used to my neighbours making appreciative and encouraging comments about my fitness as I did laps and laps and laps around where we lived.

But Ottawa is not Kuala Lumpur.

The fitness levels in Ottawa are really so much higher across the board.  That's not to say that there aren't super fit people in KL, because, of course there are, but the average fit guy/gal in Ottawa is just so much more fit than the average fit guy/gal in KL.

As I was learning.

Warming up nice and easy!

Right from the warming up I could tell that I wasn't going to be competitive in this race.  There were people of every age looking very fit and ready to run very fast.

While I may have awoken with delusions of grandeur, images of running fast across the finish line, I quickly began to revise those into more realistic goals.  I figured that I wanted to finish this 5km race in less than 25minutes, feeling strong and consistent.

I lined up on the start line with the other competitors, got my Garmin all set to record my data, and got ready to run my own race, not a competitive race with those speedy speedersons out there, but just my own race.

See me waving from the start line?

The sun was already high and hot overhead, and I could tell that some people were concerned with the heat.  But after Malaysia, it felt beautiful and balmy to me, so I wasn't worried at all.

I started my run and soon realized that (as per usual) I started too quickly.  I could hear Coach Woods in my head telling me to slow down, and so I slowed myself down to around a 4:45min/km pace (a whole minute faster than my Angkor Wat race pace of 6 months earlier).  I kept myself consistent at 4:45min/km, planning on having the energy to run the final 500m or so at super fast gusto speed.

But you know what they say about the best laid plans…

If I can just go faster…dammit!

Super fast gusto speed was not to be achieved.  At least not by me.  As I turned around at the halfway point, I was already feeling a bit tired in my legs, wondering if I'd be able to make it to the end.  Suddenly that sun that I didn't think was so hot at the starting line was feeling pretty damn hot.  That guy whose pace I had been following for a kilometre or so started to speed up for his great finish, and I wasn't able to keep pace with him.  Heck, it was all I could do to just keep steady at the pace I had set.

As I ran up the final ramp towards the finish line, I could see the minute counter was still in the 23 minute mark, counting down the seconds.  And even though I willed myself with everything in me to speed the f**k up, I saw that minute ticker tick past the 24 minute mark before I crossed the line.

Still, I had made it in under 25 minutes.

At the end of the day, I came in 3rd in my age and gender category and 13 out of 185 female competitors.

My official race stats are:
Ran for 5kms with an average pace of 4:49min/km for a total time of 24:05.

So while I may not have reached super fast gusto speed, at least now I have a baseline to start from and perhaps some more races in the months to come!

Over and out,
Joy